The Animal Collective Centipedia

SPIN's exhaustive encyclopedia of the avant-guardians' 127 most important influences

No contemporary band wears their influences on their Hypercolor sleeves like Animal Collective — and we'd expect nothing less from a crew that boasts former DJs, record-store employees, NYU program-board members, ATP curators, and plain old loud-and-proud music geeks. To celebrate the release of their piston-pumping, sampledelic ninth album Centipede Hz, SPIN dug inadvisably deep into the band's 127 most important influences, from obscure Dutch sound artists to sloptastic Pavement bootlegs to exactly how Texas Chainsaw Massacre's screechy soundtrack birthed their penchant for homebrewed tension. Roughly half of these entries feature illumination from the four members of Animal Collective themselves — David "Avey Tare" Portner, Noah "Panda Bear" Lennox, Josh "Deakin" Dibb, and Brian "Geologist" Weitz — so poke around to find out how they discovered Nevermind, what secret sample fodder pumps up "My Girls," and why they were so scared of Black Dice. CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN